Wednesday, 11 February 2015

The Taboo Reformer

Warning: Contains spoilers for the TV show Banshee. So if you don't want it spoiled then...you get the idea.

In the awesomely badass TV show Banshee they recently took
the unprecedented step of making a guy covered in swastikas out to be
sympathetic.

OK, maybe not unprecedented. After all, Edward Norton's
movie American History X has him playing a skinhead who reforms his nasty Nazi
ways. BUT... he's a badass and the price he pays for the life he once embraced
is grief beyond measure at the film's climax.

Then there's the Maggie Q/ Dylan McDermott TV show Stalker,
which had an episode where a former white supremacist made good and married a
Mexican woman and had a kid....but was a badass fighter and courageous.

The stereotype I've seen so far when this issue is addressed
in fictional media is that anyone who was once a Nazi or White Supremacist or
Ku Klux Klan (sp?) member etc and then rejected that shameful life, should be
big bodied, good looking, able to fight like a pro and be deeply ashamed of
their former horrid ways.

In Banshee they recently brought in a character called Bunker, who is
indeed a reformed Nazi but the thing that turned my head is that while he's
good looking he's as frail and flawed as the other main players in the show and
while aware that his tattoos and history are an issue, he will only apologise
up to a point and then simply walk off.

In season 3, episode 5 he is asked by a black woman (whose
father was beaten up badly by similar people years ago) why anyone should
believe he's changed and what made him do it in the first place. He tells a
tale of how his father beat him up systematically and how he was bullied badly
by the local thugs. One day an older lad came up to him, put his arm around him
and took him to a burger bar where he bought him a soda. This lad told him he
didn't have to be weak any more and that he'd show him how to protect himself. The
next time his father hurt him, the new friend went to his house and frightened
the boy's dad so badly that he never struck him again. The boy then made new
friends and found for the first time in his life that he didn't need to be
afraid.

Only problem was that his new confidence had been instilled
by fascists.

Something I've noticed is that people like this character
are USUALLY portrayed as embracing that life solely because they hate
foreigners, or gays or women in power or any number of other prejudices. Rarely
is it suggested that these people felt weak and embraced a sub culture that
allowed them to feel strong.

Jihadists or evil cunts who blow themselves up on trains, or
cut civilians' heads off on camera are portrayed and perceived as a minority of
something that in its entirety is harmless. Fundamentalist Islam is seen as
wrong by nearly all in the Western world, yet Islam itself is not. Young men
who convert to Islam and then fly to join ISIS are supposed
to be deluded, corrupted and above all manipulated by evildoers who want them
to spread a gospel of hate and misogyny around the world.

If such a young man then became a middle aged man and
offered to go on TV and tell others not to follow his previous path, then he
would be trusted and welcomed as someone who had seen the light and was now a
"good guy". Someone who could be trusted as he was now seeing things
our way.

On the flip side if a reformed Nazi, with swastikas tattooed
on his face tried to reform young people from following his path he would be
treated with caution and suspicion. His behaviour in the past would be
considered irredeemable.

Bottom line is that Nazis are perceived to have gone into it
willingly while Jihadists are thought to have been brain washed.

Banshee's character appears to be a nice guy (plot
developments pending) and is trying to put right what he did BUT isn't prepared
to simply sit there and be moaned at about it. Forget gazing at his shoes,
while shuffling awkwardly and nervously picking at his fingernails. He will
explain what he did and say he's reformed and try to prove that to you.

Ultimately what this shows is that we are intolerant to
those who are themselves intolerant. Which in my book is fine.

However we are also intolerant to those who profess to have
reformed. The reason that a debt will drop off your credit history in the UK
after 6 years is because it would be unfair to assume you are a lifetime debtor
just from one experience. Similarly offences committed as a juvenile are
usually discounted when you reach the age of 18 (not all of them, but a lot).
And criminal offences you commit as an adult stay for life and may bar you from
certain jobs later in life BUT you are deemed to have paid your debt to society by
incarceration.

Nazism is synonymous with evil. So those who associate with
it, and permanently scar their bodies to support it in black ink, are deemed to
be vile. Problem is that we do not allow Second Chances to those
who followed this path and then decided it was wrong. Now in media the shift
has started to say "You'd give anyone else a chance to prove they've
changed. Why not this guy?"

3 comments:

I read your every post and this was a good one. I actually commented on another one a few posts ago but you deleted it so I don't know if you thought I was being sarcastic or what (like my wife does with everything I say LOL) but I wasn't. I'm sure you don't expect anyone to agree with ALL your comments/musings but I can see how you use them, not only to inform others, but to exorcise your own demons. As I said before; keep up the good work.

No need to put it back. As I said, I understand your blog is primarily for your own benefit and I also understand it helps you deal with the problems you have had in the past and how you see things now. As the old cheesy novels say: "I know - I WAS that boy." Keep writing and I will keep reading.Jim.